Democracy is Under Attack

Capitalism is under attack

June 25, 2008

Rutland Herald

In response to Mr. Zivitz's letter about offshore oil belonging to us, yes, it is socialism, and last time I checked that is a failed system.

Our capitalist system has proved itself far superior. The thought of our government running an oil company — just imagine how screwed up that would be. I could see it now, higher prices at the pump and an unreliable supply.

This country's capitalist system is under attack everywhere you look. What's scary is the attack is from within. Every big company is demonized, and profit is looked at as taking advantage of the people. At this rate, we'll be the People's Republic of the U.S. soon.

DON JACKSON


Dear Mr. Jackson, you suggest that U.S. citizens are more and more often “attacking” capitalism, which you also suggest is the Great Building Block in the foundation of our country. You show proof of these attacks by pointing out how “big” companies are demonized and “profit is looked at as taking advantage of the people.” I believe your ideas stem from confusion regarding whether we are a democratic nation or a capitalist one. Let me help you. We are a democratic nation first and foremost. We have grown into a capitalist nation, but we remain a democracy. And that should always come first.

In a democracy we are encouraged to explore, investigate, question, judge, and voice our opinions about our leaders, representatives and legislatures. When our leaders take and spend our money in ways we consider foolish, we protest. We expect transparency from our democratically elected government. We also expect to be able to change what we perceive as problems.

Capitalism, however, works very differently. Most of these “big” companies work hard to be non-transparent, to hide their inner workings from us. It takes much research to find out what is done with our money, after we give it to a capitalist company. So, when we discover that the CEO of that company is receiving a phenomenally large salary and benefits package, of course we will be annoyed. And of course we will work to change it. That’s what we’re expected to do.

If we’re now realizing we aren’t quite as enamoured of strict capitalism as we thought, then perhaps capitalism needs to change. As I said before, Democracy comes before capitalism, which means capitalism will need to change to fit our Democracy because the Democracy is not going to change to serve capitalism.